Can we count Facebook encounters? I've spoken to Ross "The Boss" Friedman, one of the original members of ManoWar and the Dictators, and he's a total right wing nutjob douche. Pretty disappointing as The Dictators were one of the bands that got me into punk and ManoWar is, well, ManoWar.

I'm surprised to hear this. The guy who runs the label my band is on (and produced our newest album) is currently the bass player for Manitoba - which is basically the current version of The Dictators (Handsome Dick, Ross the Boss and J.P. Patterson are all in the band - and Daniel Rey and my buddy Dean Rispler round out the line-up)....and he swears by Ross the Boss as being one of the coolest people on the planet. Handsome Dick was awesome.....Dean introduced me and he took a photo with my wife & I.

Maybe Ross is totally cool and *gasp* right wing?!?!

_________________'Sometimes you have to be a bigot in order to beat bigger bigots' - G. Marenghi.

Can we count Facebook encounters? I've spoken to Ross "The Boss" Friedman, one of the original members of ManoWar and the Dictators, and he's a total right wing nutjob douche. Pretty disappointing as The Dictators were one of the bands that got me into punk and ManoWar is, well, ManoWar.

I'm surprised to hear this. The guy who runs the label my band is on (and produced our newest album) is currently the bass player for Manitoba - which is basically the current version of The Dictators (Handsome Dick, Ross the Boss and J.P. Patterson are all in the band - and Daniel Rey and my buddy Dean Rispler round out the line-up)....and he swears by Ross the Boss as being one of the coolest people on the planet. Handsome Dick was awesome.....Dean introduced me and he took a photo with my wife & I.

Okay, I'll clear this up. He can be a douche when discussing politics. He'll get pretty insulting about things. However, he seems to be nice outside of that.

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Hircine wrote:

Step 1 for 'How not to create evil atmosphere on a death metal album':

I met the guys from Dragged Into Sunlight once after a show. They were coming out of the back of the venue, still wearing their trademark balaclavas for some reason. I walked up to them and said the show was great, and that I love their music. They all stopped, still wearing balaclavas, and just looked at me in complete silence. Then the vocalist just said "Jesus wept" and licked his lips in a very weird way. I just nodded nervously and kind of walked/sprinted out of there. I'm sure they were laughing their asses off at me after I left.

_________________"MY GARBAGE CAN IS FILLEDWITH PLASTIC, CANS AND GLASSIF YOU TELL ME TO RECYCLEI'M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS"

I met the guys from Dragged Into Sunlight once after a show. They were coming out of the back of the venue, still wearing their trademark balaclavas for some reason. I walked up to them and said the show was great, and that I love their music. They all stopped, still wearing balaclavas, and just looked at me in complete silence. Then the vocalist just said "Jesus wept" and licked his lips in a very weird way. I just nodded nervously and kind of walked/sprinted out of there. I'm sure they were laughing their asses off at me after I left.

...the hell? I guess I could see their singer being weird like that. I met the guitarist and drummer after their set at MDF this year and they were both cool. They gave me a sticker, too! I told them thanks for coming to the states and that they were awesome and they were actually surprised at that. I guess they didn't expect that big of a crowd response in the U.S.

Tom Hunting of Exodus - Met him two years ago just right after the show. He looked very tired, but he stopped to shake hands and I took a photo with him. After that he smiled and then went to the backstage. I think he is really nice, but he really looked tired.

Russell Allen, Michael Romeo and Michael Lepond of Symphony X - Great great guys! Me and my friends were sitting on a parking lot two hours before the show when Russell Allen stepped out of tour bus. He looked right at us and waved his hand, so we started to clap our hands and he started to dance it was really funny. Later, he was standing right outside the club with Romeo and Lepond and they all were very friendly and took photos with us.

Snake, Blacky, Away and Chewy of Voivod - Met them right after the show. They were playing in a very small club so right after they finished playing they stepped into the crowd to sign all kinds of shit (including my concert ticket) and took photos with the fans. Snake seemed to be very drunk, but he was funny. Away is really humble and interesting person.

Ray Alder, Jim Matheos, Frank Aresti, Joey Vera and Bobby Jarzombek of Fates Warning - After the show they stepped into the crowd and started to take photos with fans and sign our tickets, CDs and vinyls. They signed my concert ticket and stayed with us for a very long time, very nice guys.

Blaze Bayley - He seems to really respect and love his fans. Before and after the show he was signing CDs and tickets and took photos with the fans, very nice and funny guy. He signed my copy of Maiden's The X-Factor album. Very proud of it.

Martin Lopez of ex-Opeth - Found him right in front of the club where he played with Soen as an opening act for Paradise Lost. Very humble and very confused guy, but he was nice. He signed my copy of Opeth's Damnation album.

Tony Campos of Soulfly - Right after the Soulfly show he started to take photos with fans and shit like that. He was smiling all the time and it was really great. It's a shame I can't say the same thing for Max Cavalera...

John Kevill and John Laux of Warbringer - Great guys, right after the show they started to sign fans' tickets and all other kinds of stuff.

Mark Tornillo, Herman Frank and Stefan Schwarzmann of Accept - Probably the nicest guys I've ever met! Very funny and in the mood for talking. I met them yesterday in their backstage right after the show in Zagreb, Croatia. They vere friendly and very nice to talk to. Mark is really great guy, but Stefan seemet to be very very tired so he just signed our stuff, he wasn't talking very much. Nevertheless, it was very nice.

---------

Douches:

Max Cavalera of Soulfly - Never really met him, but after the Soulfly show he just vanished off the stage. Later when I went home I saw his tour bus in front of the club they were playing and some woman was standing in front of it (I think it was his wife because his sons played in opening acts for Soulfly) so I asked her if she could ask Max to sign me my copy of Sepultura's Chaos A.D. She said no problem and I gave her booklet so she went into the bus. Two minutes later she stepped out of the bus with booklet which was NOT signed and said "Max said he doesn't sign Sepultura anymore". Fuck you man. Just to point it out, he played four Sepultura songs that night.

Marky Ramone and his whole band (he was playing without Michale Graves, some other idiot was singing) - Assholes. During the show he didn't look at the crowd at any time, and after the last song he just ran away from stage. There was no "thank you" during the whole show, nothing. Later, when he got out of backstage, he literally ran out of club without saying a word.

Matt Knight from Eternal Winter is a really great guy to talk to. I'm probably the only guy on that forum that knows Eternal Winter, hah. Really nice guy willing to talk about all sorts of shit.

Howie Bentley from Cauldron Born is the man. I hassle this guy a lot. He probably cringes every time he signs on and see's that I'm online. Very old school in his views, and definitely not afraid to give you his opinion. Luckily, our tastes are pretty much in line.

Pedro Daniel - Bassist for Before the Rain. Another nice guy. He once gave me some background on Portuguese "fado" music. Was pretty interesting to learn about it.

Danny Cinicolo - Guitarist for Italian band Maleficarum. Cool dude and great guitar player. Posts a lot of videos of him covering his favourite death metal tracks. He gave me a lot of info on the history of his bands. Anyone into old school death metal should check out Maleficarum - Across the Heavens.

Dwayne Boyd - Front man for The Ziggurat. Very brainy guy, big on Lovecraft and theology. Nice guy too, he'll chat about anything. Always makes posts encouraging people to read and expand their knowledge of various subjects.

Met Wino and Dave from Vitus when they stopped by a couple weeks ago, they were cool as hell.

My friend met Pete Steele backstage and said "Pete, can I get a hug?" to which Pete replied back in deadpan fashion "Just don't take my vah-let".

Charlie Benante was at a hole in the wall bar in the Chicago subrubs for some reason, and my friend decided to play an Anthrax song on the jukebox, and it pissed Benante off. I agreed with Benante though, and thought my friend was an idiot, especially because the bar was basically dead. If you show appreciation, try talking to them.

Dwayne Boyd - Front man for The Ziggurat. Very brainy guy, big on Lovecraft and theology. Nice guy too, he'll chat about anything. Always makes posts encouraging people to read and expand their knowledge of various subjects.

Hey, what a suprise! I know Dwayne personally because my band occasionally shares the stage with The Ziggurat. He's a huge King Diamond fan, and his band is pretty good too! And I agree he is nice as hell!

Nice dude, but holy shit what an awkward conversation that was. His English wasn't perfect, and I myself am no great conversationalist, especially when with strangers, and the result was him being utterly confused and myself highly embarrassed.

Don Anderson, Jason William Walton, and Aesop Dekker of Agalloch-

I really only had a conversation with the first two, my interaction with Aesop was limited to a handshake and a very brief exchange of words. Before their Boston show on the Faustian Echoes tour I was dining in the Middle East with my wife when lo and behold, Aesop pretty much burst into the restaurant with the merch guy and one of the ladies from Taurus. I being extremely introverted, I simply kept eating and decided I would not bother Aesop during his meal. A few minutes later, Don and Jason came up from the downstairs and sat in the booth right across the aisle, by which point my wife was repeatedly trying to convince me to say something. Finally, she got up, claiming that she needed to use the restroom, and not a second later she was calling me over, as Don had invited us to sit with Jason and he. We had a fantastic conversation touching upon prog rock, Can (German krautrock band), Boston's culture, Poland and the Czech Republic, Woody Allen, the social awkwardness of Neige, and Jack Kerouac among various other topics, by the end of which we had spent over a half an hour with them. Totally awesome dudes!

Matt Harvey, Bud Burke, Rob Babcock, and Mike Hamilton (Exhumed): God damn, these dudes were just some of the nicest people ever. Got to talk with all of them at various points throughout the night; they were all incredibly outgoing and a ton of fun to joke around with. Oh, and watching Rob and Bud do the Thriller dance after the show is the kind of thing that has to be seen.

Nice dude, but holy shit what an awkward conversation that was. His English wasn't perfect, and I myself am no great conversationalist, especially when with strangers, and the result was him being utterly confused and myself highly embarrassed.

He's real awkward at first, but once he gets drunk the dude gets hilarious.

_________________

Varg Vikernes wrote:

When you encounter such apparent "mistakes" made by me you need to accept them as correct, and keep reading until you realise that my interpretation is in fact correct.

Whole Iced Earth crew in Jalometalli this year. Just for a short time, but they seemed really nice. (Also noticed they were in same hotel as i was, not that it actually has anything to do with this thread since they only passed by as i was having a smoke outside but well..)

Marco Sneck (Kalmah), met him after a show during their 2008 Canada tour. Dudes English is spotty but both being keymasters I asked him a bunch of questions about his rig and mutual ideas. 3 years later I contact him on Facebook to continue the corresponance and he remembers me! Awesome, awesome dude. Shame he left Kalmah.

_________________

Iron_Wizard wrote:

I read about sex online. Thats how i figured out how to masturbate. It took me a while to figure it out.

Paul Ryan of Origin is kick ass guy to talk to. Met him at a small ass venue in bumblefuck nowhere behind a magic shop for a show of 7 people. He hung out with us most of the time outside waiting for the show, as well as them and Dying Fetus to go on stage. Also hung out with James Lee, who was with them at the time, and he talked with us the entire time. We even bumped into him at Summer Slaughter and he stopped us and talked with us for a while. Of course, I don't blame him or Paul for remembering us considering the location haha.

James Lee now lives in my town (Mankato, MN) and is also the vocalist for a death metal band based out of here called Face of Oblivion. I've ran into him a few times and he's always been pleasant to talk to, always commenting on my various death metal shirts.

Neil Fallon from Clutch (not exactly metal but whatever) is another cool guy I've met, my buddy and I ran into him before a Clutch show back in 2009 and he talked to us for a bit and let us take pictures with him.

I also got to meet Byron Davis from God Forbid briefly at a Lamb of God show. Pretty sure he was kinda drunk since he was walking around with a Burger King crown on, but he was really friendly and I got to shake his hand and tell him that he was the fuckin man.

And I've also talked to a few band members on Facebook. Kelly Shaefer from Atheist is another really down to earth guy. I messaged him once just to talk about the old Atheist albums from the 90s and he just seemed gracious for all of the band's success. Also talked to Tony Campos from Soulfly/Ministry/Static X, he too was really nice.

Have yet to meet any douchebags yet in the metal realm. Though I did have a dream that I was at an Iron Maiden concert and Bruce Dickinson stopped a song and yelled at me because it was a new song and I didn't know the lyrics. But that doesn't count. I've heard Bruce is really cool to fans.

I speak to Ross the Boss on occasion on facebook. All I can say is that it's pretty cool that he takes time to talk to me and answer my questions. But yeah he is definitely very right wing and overall not overly bright or interesting. He's a big fan of baseball and he runs a sports entertainment center somewhere in New York.

Met Chris Reifert of Autopsy when I was helping Tomas Stench of Morbosidad with merch one night. He was one of the coolest guys I've met.

Met all of Archgoat, which kind of made me nervous considering at the time I heard a rumor of them being stuck up, but they actually were very cool and talked to me about releases over a Spliff. It was really an honor to meet one of my all time favorite bands.

Met Glen Benton at a Deicide/Vital Remains gig and he didn't seem bothered about me going to shake his hand.

Kerry King was a cool guy when I met him at a restaurant but the second time I saw him, he was avoiding any metalhead that he saw, while wearing a Du-Rag.

Joel Grind.......two words....stuck up.

Tomas Stench is AWESOME! I haven't seen him in a couple years, and we lost contact. His girlfriend (wife?) and I used to be good friends, too, but we lost contact.

I've never heard of Archgoat being stuck up. They were real cool when I met them. That was in 2007, during their first US appearance.

I've heard mixed things about Glen Benton. Some friends of mine saw Deicide last night. They stopped at a gas station before hand and bought some things, and their total came out to $6.66...When they showed the receipt to Glen and Steve, they laughed and signed it for them. I thought that was a funny story.

Joel Grind being stuck up? I'm kind of surprised. I saw them play in Myrtle Beach, SC a few years ago. They opened for Gwar, and some terrible band that had the singer of Hatebreed in it (I forget the name), and I was the only one jamming out and singing along with their songs. Joel saw me after they played and said, "You were like the only one who looked like you were having a good time." I told him, "Hey, you played my friend's festival in Texas in 2007. He says hello." Joel got a big smile and said, "Wow, I haven't talked to him in ages. How do you know him?" And from there, we had about a 30 minute conversation. A couple years later, my drummer and I drove to Richmond, VA (100 miles from where we live) to see them play with The Casualties. We anticipated a lot of traffic and hit none, so we were at the club early. The entire band was standing outside, and they shook our hands, and we joined in their converstaion. Joel didn't seem stuck up at all.

A friend of mine said he saw Slayer at a Waffle House after a show, and said they were all awesome to talk to, but I don't know if that's a true story or not. Tom Araya did come through a tourist attraction (to take a tour of some underground caverns) when my brother worked there. He recognized Tom, and just acted real casual, like, "Hey. I'm a big fan. How are you today?", but Tom was acting extremely shy. Of course, he was spending the day with his family and probably didn't want to be bothered. That's so cool he met him, though.

I met a couple musicians while I worked there as well: Robert Moore (ex-Devourment) came through. I complimented him on his Devourment T-shirt, and he told me, "Oh yeah, I used to play in this band." The very same day, the drummer of Ft Worth, Texas black metal band Demonhammer came though. I DID recognize him. He's enormous, but plays so damn fast. I also met the drummer from Ratt while working there. All three of those guys were extremely nice. They're no Tom Araya though.

I met Seth Putnam on his final tour. I've always heard he was an asshole, so I was very surprised when he was extremely nice to me. He gave me an autograph, and offered to take a picture with me. "Can I see how it came out? ...haha, nice". Very nice guy.

The vocalist of Grave Ritual was extremely nice. I forget his name. Ryan, I think? I met all of the members of Adorior that night, too. All very nice folks.

I met a guy at a show in Richmond, VA, when he complimented my Malignant Christ t-shirt. I told him that my band had recently played a show with them in Tennessee. He was asking me all kinds of questions about my band, the show, and seemed legitimately interested. I eventually gave him a flyer and asked, "Are you in a band too?" He responded, "Yeah. I'm in a band called Cough". I cracked up, saying "Oh nice. I didn't know that. I have everything you guys have released."

A couple months later, I met Proscriptor of Absu at the same venue. Extremely nice guy. I'd imagine he'd get bothered by so many people crowding him, asking for autographs and pictures with him every night, but he didn't seem like he was. The rest of the band was getting annoyed though...and I guess if I had to break down my drummer's equipment while he was off talking to people he'd never met before, I'd be pretty pissed off too.

It seems the overwhelming consensus here is that guys in bands are very nice, cool, and all around good people. What are the main exceptions to this?

From people I know? Phil Labonte. Far too much shit to list about that asshole.From what I've heard? Rings of Saturn guys (arrogant little shits, their current vocalist also tried to start shit with me online and invited me to fight him IRL), Waking the Cadaver guys (LEGENDARY for their douchebaggery), Tim Yeung (asked a couple people about him who've known him, he's apparently a total asshole), Phil Fasciana and Jason Blachowicz (racist pieces of shit, the "you fucking nigger bands" incident with Ben Orum of ASP says it all), Kevin Talley (apparently very socially awkward, and his attempts to be extroverted result in his acting like a fratboy asshole), Karl Sanders (Malmsteenian ego), Mike Smith (unstable and violent bully with a hell of an ego to boot), Jim Sheppard (drunken asshole who holds and regularly acts on tons of petty grudges, most of them related to not getting his way), Steve Tucker (cokehead and inveterate liar), Glen Benton (same deal as Tucker, only less of a cokehead and more of a raging liar), Jeff Tandy (walking caricature of the "DTP \m/ for life" stereotype of metal fans, just a stupidly aggressive and confrontational asshole who loves starting shit with people), Phil Bozeman (arrogant and incredibly obnoxious meathead who at least seems to be a raging homophobe thanks to his tendency to use "faggot" all the time), and Michael Keene (absolutely enormous ego, acted like a goddamn rockstar when he was playing a friggin' dive in MA and was apparently incredibly rude to all the staff). Again, these are just people I've heard about. These accounts may or may not be true, but they all came from either musicians who have played with them or venue staff who have dealt with them, lending some credibility to the claims.

From the Frank post, I have different experiences from Steve Tucker (which was extremely nice with fans and the other musicians when we were there) and Tim Yeung (at least playing with Morbid Angel he was humble enough to shake hands and greet fans), and also Benton was nice (which I posted it before).

I concur with Mike Smith tho. At difference with the Morbid Angel guys (ALL nice, especially Dave Vincent and yes, I've seen Morbid Angel many times), he was very rude with the people who actually was there only to see him playing live; no pics, no signing, no thanx and a lot of 'get out', pretty much like Shagrath.

Nice to know that Proscriptor is a nice guy, I'm going to see Absu live next week

From the Frank post, I have different experiences from Steve Tucker (which was extremely nice with fans and the other musicians when we were there) and Tim Yeung (at least playing with Morbid Angel he was humble enough to shake hands and greet fans), and also Benton was nice (which I posted it before).

I concur with Mike Smith tho. At difference with the Morbid Angel guys (ALL nice, especially Dave Vincent and yes, I've seen Morbid Angel many times), he was very rude with the people who actually was there only to see him playing live; no pics, no signing, no thanx and a lot of 'get out', pretty much like Shagrath.

Nice to know that Proscriptor is a nice guy, I'm going to see Absu live next week

The things about the first three were told to me by musicians (Bill told me about Steve and Glen, and Jason from Origin more or less confirmed that Steve was a liar who would give hard-luck tales and "I just gotta borrow some money for ____, I'll pay you back ASAP" requests, only to spend said money on drugs and then lie out his ass about how he spent it as he said he would and that he'd give them back the money, only to have a new excuse every time about why he didn't have it; as for Tim, Mike Hamilton told me about some very unpleasant experiences involving Tim, as well as Tim's general extreme rudeness and arrogance).

As for Mike Smith, in addition to what Bill told me about him, Exhumed Mike said something about not knowing him too well, but that he was aware of how Smith had used Derek as a punching bag on multiple occasions and would frequently assault him for no reason other than a terse "because I don't fuckin' like the kid, that's fuckin' why" when Terrance started going "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, DUDE!?"; he had also done the same thing to Guy, but nowhere near as often as he did it to Derek. That's where the "bully" part came from.

I usually try to avoid people in bands I like because it's hard to like assholes afterwards. A more recent interaction was Vasaeleth, who possibly believe they are the hardest most metal motherfuckers on planet earth, god's gift to death metal, utterly fucking sucked live and got pissed off because no one was moshing, cannot listen to CD anymore.

Met Glenn Benton at a Vital Remains show, was completely unaware he was their vocalist or that I was talking to Glenn Benton. He seemed like a decent person, a little confused by my behavior, it didn't click til half a year later.

Will and Rog of Mortician multiple times at different shows, Will is like a real life T-800 and speaks in monotone one word statements, he signed all my shit. Roger is cool as shit, the rest of the guys in Malignancy are funny as hell.

Corpsegrinder of Cannibal Corpse, he doesn't seem like he enjoys being in that band or touring.

I met one of the Guitarists from Android Empire. This guy was pretty nice even though I was totally drunk and probaly just babbled drunken nonsense. We asked him for a copy of their self released EP and asked him to hurry because we had to go to catch a train. As we asked him how much it was, he just said: 'Nah, take it and go catch your train.' Really nice guy.

I also 'met' the whole The Devil Wears Prada team. I saw them leaving a checkroom at a club but when I asked them for a photo, they just ignored me and passed by.

I usually try to avoid people in bands I like because it's hard to like assholes afterwards. A more recent interaction was Vasaeleth, who possibly believe they are the hardest most metal motherfuckers on planet earth, god's gift to death metal, utterly fucking sucked live and got pissed off because no one was moshing, cannot listen to CD anymore.

Bobby Liebling of Pentagram, frowned and shrugged a lot, seemed bummed out, was down to take many pictures

I saw Vasaeleth in December. I thought they played extremely well, and they were very nice guys, too. Maybe you saw them when they played terribly, and were pissed off about it? Or maybe I caught them during an unusually good day. Who knows? But they were real nice guys, and crushed live, at Rites of Darkness.

I met Bobby Liebling in Savannah, GA a few years ago. They were touring before their MDF appearance. They played at a TINY bar that MAYBE held 40 people (Dark Castle and Black Tusk opened). I talked to Bobby for about 15 minutes after the show. He was extremely nice. Got a picture with me, and we talked about all kinds of stuff.

I think they were having a bad day, their drummer was cool as shit, the other guys seemed to be in hulkamaniac mode the whole time, I haven't been able to put the disc on for a while, that kind of shit really fucks with me.

I met the drummer from Macabre at a tiny show at a little hole in the wall bar in Atlantic City NJ. He was an awesome dude. He bullshitted with me for a few minutes, talked about MDF. He took a picture and all. Really laid back guy. After they played (To about 10 people) the singer came into the audience and shook everyone's hand. They even hung out and watched all the openeing bands of teenagers play.

Went to see Jeff Loomis on the last date of the Euroblast tour yesterday evening, he was super nice to everyone. After dismantling his gear with the other band members and roadies, he gave us some free signature picks, then stepped off the stage and hung around for a while, taking pictures with people, signing stuff and the likes. Very laid back and polite, you could tell he was having a great time. I also talked a bit with several members from the other bands (Stealing Axion, Monuments and Vildhjarta) and they were all extremely friendly as well. A great night to remember.